As an optical fiber for transmitting numerous data at high speed, an optical fiber ribbon in which a plurality of optical fiber strands are arranged and bonded in parallel is used for simple cable storage and operation. In some optical fiber ribbons, parallel optical fiber strands are fixed and bonded by resin over the full length thereof. In other optical fiber ribbons, optical fiber strands are bonded to each other intermittently, such as Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2010-8923, for example.
With these intermittently bonded optical fiber ribbons, no large strain is given to the optical fiber ribbons when the optical fiber cable, which is packaged densely with optical fibers, is bent. This is because the optical fiber ribbon can move freely as a single core at the non-connected sections of the intermittently bonded optical fiber tape that is packaged in the cable.
When a plurality of the intermittently bonded optical fiber ribbons are inserted into a cable, the motion of the optical fiber ribbons may be impeded, depending on the positions of the bonding sections.
More particularly, it has been found out that, when the positions of the connected sections of the optical fiber ribbons overlap with each other completely, the motion of the optical fiber ribbons, which configures the intermittently bonded optical fiber tape, is impeded, deteriorating transmission characteristics.